Stoicism is the name of a comprehensive philosophical system inaugurated at Athens by Zeno of Citium in the last years of the fourth century B.C. The system was divided for the purposes of exposition into three subjects: physics, logic, and ethics; but between these there is a fundamental connection which makes

(Zeno of Citium, Cleanthes, Chrysippus), like the Epicureans, make speculation subordinate to the quest of happiness, and the two schools, in spite of their divergencies, both consider happiness to be ataraxia or absence of sorrow and preoccupation.

This division, we are told by Diogenes, was made by Zeno of Citium, the founder of the Stoic sect, and by Chrysippus; but these philosophers placed the three divisions in the following order: Logic, Physic, Ethic.

a school of PHILOSOPHY founded in the fourth century B.C. by Zeno of Citium which taught a PANTHEISTIC MONISM that identified GOD with the principle of UNIVERSAL REASON and advised everyone to accept their place in the scheme of life by doing their duty which was to follow the most RATIONAL path possible.